ARTHUR SPRUILL INSANE.

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His Strange Conduct Accounted For.

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            A young man named Arthur Spruill located in Snow Hill somewhat over a year ago for the purpose of practicing law. Coming well endorsed, of pleasant address, he soon gained the confidence and esteem of all good citizens. Reports damaging to his integrity have recently gained circulation and among these was a charge of forgery. Soon after, Mr. Spruill disappeared from Snow Hill, and nothing was known of his whereabouts until the following item appeared in the Washington Progress of last week: 

An Insane Man Captured.

           From Mr. W. S. Dickinson, who resides in Chocowinity township [Beaufort County], about six miles from town, we gathered the arrest and confinement of Mr. Arthur Spruill, a young lawyer from Snow Hill, Greene county. Mr. Dickinson was in his field at work on Friday last, when he heard a voice calling in pitiful accents to an imaginary friend to come back and not leave, then pleading with a supposed enemy, begging not to be shot, that he would surrender. Mr. Dickinson’s curiosity was aroused and he proceeded to a piece of woods from whence the sounds proceeded, and there found a man acting so strangely as to leave no doubt of his being insane. The stranger wrote his name, Arthur Spruill, and from his incoherent talk, it was learned that he had been practicing law in Snow Hill. It was also surmised that a slander suit recently tried in Greene county was the cause of his present demented condition. Mr. Dickinson cared for the maniac at his house Friday night, and on Saturday morning brought him to this town and lodged him in jail. We believe Mr. Spruill originally came from Washington county, and is connected with the best families in that section.—Washington Progress.

[Taken from Goldsboro Messenger, (Goldsboro, NC) 3 May 1886 and The Daily Journal  (New Bern, NC) 30 Apr 1886]